League of American Traitors

by Matthew Landis

  “That’s actually way worse.”

  A wind kicked up. “But Jasper, our window is rapidly closing.”

  “You trust her?”

  “I trust that she believes I will keep my word if we walk into an ambush,” Cyrus said.

  “She could just not care about dying. We don’t seem to.” Jasper closed his eyes and pictured his dad, standing here, on this roof, diary in hand. Would he have had the guts to go through with this? “Sheldon acted so tough. You should’ve heard him talk about dueling. He was gonna be some great warrior for the cause. Burrs don’t hide. That’s what he used to say.”

  “I’m sure that he acted that way because he wanted it to be true.”

  The scene from the van replayed in Jasper’s head. He tried to shove it aside, but it was in IMAX 3D, surround sound. The corners of his eyes burned. The tremor was back in his hands.

  This is what Nora had talked about. The cost.

  And that’s why he would do it.

  Not because he was brave, but because you don’t run this far and climb over this many bodies to stop at the last mile marker. You risk heatstroke and heart attack because on the other side of the tape is water and rest. Making it there wasn’t a sure thing. You hoped.

  You never despaired.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Jasper watched the lights of the Chesapeake Bay shoreline whizz by. The windbreaker cut out none of the cold, but that was okay because Sybil insisted he stay wide-awake. In T-minus ten minutes, she’d call him back into the main cabin and continue force-feeding him chunks of the brief they were crafting. This was nothing at all like TV, where you got up and gave some big emotional speech that convinced a jury to side with you or you flipped the bad guy on the stand and proved your whole case. This was boring, tedious work. All those hours of Law and Order had seriously let him down.

  They’d waited until the third night after the shooting to drive to a charter yacht service in Delaware. When the place opened, Larkin booked it and cruised farther down the Chesapeake to a cove and picked up the others—Sybil, Cyrus, Jasper, and Nora. Returning the boat was something they could deal with later.

  The cabin door opened and Nora came out on deck with a cup of something hot.

  “You know what goes great with coffee?” she asked. “A cigarette.”

  “Good luck lighting it.”

  The yacht rose and fell on a small wave and Jasper winced as he grabbed the railing to keep steady. A cracked rib wasn’t helping him find those sea legs.

  “Byron died,” Nora said.

  Jasper had been waiting for this moment. “When?”

  “Yesterday morning. I’m so sorry.”

  Another one down. And this one hurt the worst. “I was such a prick to him.”

  “I’m sure you weren’t.”

  “He never complained once about having to babysit me.” When would they even find time for the funeral? Maybe Jasper wouldn’t be alive to see it. “Byron was so tough. I didn’t actually think it was possible for him to die.”

  “He was a true badass.”

  They watched the shoreline until the horizon turned gray. Then Nora tugged Jasper’s arm and led him into the cabin.

  No rest for the weary.

  Sybil and Cyrus were sitting on benches along one side, hunched over laptops. Larkin manned the wheel up front, overseeing all of the dials and buttons and switches. A nautical map lay open next to him, and he checked it every couple of minutes. Jasper wasn’t sure when, exactly, but they’d be reaching the mouth of the Potomac River and follow it north to the capital. Cyrus had kept the rest of the plan to himself.

  “There are only two ts in the word entrapment,” Sybil said.

  “Right.”

  “You’ve been saying entrap-t-ment. That’s incorrect.”

  “Entrapment.”

  “Again.”

  “Entraptment.”

  Sybil sighed, then reached over piles of documents and went to hand him the brief. Her face tightened, and for a second, turned pale. Cyrus leaned over, placing the papers in Jasper’s hand, before trying to examine her shoulder wound. She shooed him away. “I made some notes in the margins.”

  “I’ll have this with me during the hearing?”

  “Yes, but you only have thirty minutes. You can’t afford to waste time grabbing at loose facts, especially not when the Chief Justice interrupts with questions. Memorize as much as possible.”

  “Can the other guy do that, too? Object?”

  “This is not a trial,” Cyrus said, nose deep in some giant legal binder thing he’d hauled from his office. “It is a presentation of facts with case law to support the argument. Their attorney will not object during your allotted time.”

  “So, he’s an actual lawyer. With experience.”

  “Yes.”

  “Great.”

  “If you’re worried about appearing inexperienced,” Sybil said, “your hair isn’t helping.”

  Jasper had been doing a lot more tucking of strands behind his ears lately. It was getting a little out of hand. “You brought scissors, didn’t you?”

  “I’m always prepared.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll do it,” Nora offered.

  “After you review the changes,” Sybil replied.

  And he did, but she kept making more changes, and then making him read them again. Cyrus peppered him with random questions, trying to throw him off his game. It worked most of the time. There were just too many details—too many threads to keep track of. And the case law examples Sybil had dug up to add backbone to their argument were hard to grasp. Jasper was certain that if he walked out of the Supreme Court building alive, he would not be going to law school. But he would be writing to the Law and Order directors about peddling a fantasy version of how lawyering actually worked.

  By noon, they had made the turn north onto the Potomac. Larkin kept the throttle low and steady—they didn’t want to advertise they were in a hurry. Today, they were just some rich people on a small yacht, cruising to the capital. Nothing to see here. Jasper knelt in the cramped bathroom with a towel around his shoulders as Nora unpacked the clipper kit.

  “My dad did a three on the side blended to a scissor cut on top. It’s basic but professional.”

  “Anything will be an improvement,” Sybil called from the cabin.

  Jasper picked up the cheapo plastic insert that had a model sporting some really gelled up style that looked awful. Then he thought about Byron.

  “How close can you go?”

  “A zero.”

  “That’s what I want. Take it all off.”

  The vibrating blade felt good against his skin, except for the two times the boat hit a wave and it felt like she’d sliced him. When it was done, he rinsed his head in the small cabin sink and unfogged the mirror to get a good look.

  “Whoa.” He traced a finger along the indents of his hairline near the scalp. “I don’t even recognize myself.”

  Nora stood behind him, head pressed between his shoulder blades. She held on tight enough to break another rib. “You had to kill Sheldon.” She said it like she was settling something in her mind, and maybe in his. “You didn’t want to—you had to. That’s different.”

  “That doesn’t make it any less awful.”

  “No. But it’s still true. And true things need to be said. They need to be shouted from mountaintops.”

  Jasper had to work hard to turn around in the cramped space. “I’m sorry you had to break your penance for me.”

  Eyeliner streaks slipped down one side of Nora’s face. “I was thinking that maybe picking up a gun again … killing again … maybe that’s part of my penance. To make up for what I did, I’d have to do it again, but right. For something good.”

  She clung to Jasper’s neck and they swayed with the boat. What was a person supposed to say at a time like this—when this might be it?

  Something true.

  “When the trial is all over, I was wondering if
maybe you’d consider e-cigarettes.”

  His head smacked into the mirror as her lips found his. Bottles fell off the shelves, and the toilet seat slammed shut. Jasper yelped once when Nora clawed at his busted rib. Sybil cleared her throat right outside the door.

  “Lots to do,” she said. “It’s not as if your life depends on this.”

  ****

  Around five thirty, they docked in a tiny estuary. A Middle Eastern man stood by a taxi van and loaded their bags into the trunk. Nora carried the diary. Country roads took them into suburbia, and Jasper saw a sign for Alexandria. His stomach pulled tighter and he turned back to his notes, trying not to imagine the kind of execution the Libertines were planning for him. Would they go old school and hang him? That’s probably what Washington would have ordered if Arnold were caught. Seemed fitting. Or maybe they’d pick something more modern, like a firing squad.

  “Read,” Sybil said, tapping the brief.

  The taxi dropped them at Huntington Station. The group ascended a long escalator to the platform where they boarded the Yellow Line, switched to the Orange at L’Enfant Plaza, and finally exited at Capitol South. The sun had dropped below the horizon when they returned to street level. Jasper had been to DC once on a school trip, but he couldn’t remember exactly where the Supreme Court building was. He checked his watch and saw they had thirty minutes.

  Cyrus led them up 2nd Street, past the Library of Congress. Then past another library, also of Congress. Apparently, there were a few, each named after an early president. The giant US Capitol building loomed ahead of them, and Jasper thought about congresspeople and their staffs doing paperwork and making laws. He wondered if they’d care about Joseph Reed and Benedict Arnold and the feuds that stretched back to the Revolutionary War. They’d probably hold a hearing about it, disagree along party lines, and then get back to reams of paperwork that never did anything. Or go play golf.

  Cyrus had warned him, but Jasper didn’t even see the car pull up beside them. He was too busy looking at the small crowd around the Supreme Court plaza fountains ahead. They were so close—he’d actually let himself believe they were going to make it to the hearing without any problems.

  And then, all of sudden, the white BMW was on the shoulder next to them, the tinted windows lowering in slow-motion, the car braking to match their pace. The world tilted; Jasper knew where this was headed. It’s why he’d swapped out his belt holster for a shoulder carrier.

  He reached inside his coat and grabbed his weapon as a voice called out, “A word, Counselor.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  A DC Metro police SUV cruised by. Jasper relaxed the grip on his gun, but kept his hand tucked in his coat.

  The passenger window was half open, and a fat, bald man with acne scars said, “I only want to chat.”

  “And you are?” Cyrus asked.

  “You know who I am.” The man checked his watch. “And we both have a meeting to make. So get in. The boy, too.”

  “No.”

  “Counselor, if I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead. Believe it or not, war is not in my best interest. So get. In.”

  Jasper felt around for something else. Found the button. Pushed it, felt it click.

  “Turn off the car,” Cyrus ordered.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” The man opened the door and lifted his arms, flapping his suit jacket to show he wasn’t armed. “I’m alone, except for my driver. And he’s carrying, just like you.”

  “The keys,” Cyrus said, “and the driver.”

  The fat man sighed. He jutted his chin at the man behind the wheel, who turned off the car, got out, and walked around the back. “You can kill him if I so much as sneeze,” he said to Larkin. He opened the rear door for Cyrus, and then climbed back in himself. Jasper followed.

  “Tallmadge,” Cyrus said.

  “You pronounced it correctly. That’s unusual. Good for you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “How is Elsbeth?”

  “Alive.”

  “And singing like a songbird, considering you made it to the Blue Line before we saw you. You gave her the royal treatment, I’m sure.”

  Cyrus let the silence stretch. Jasper wondered if there was a bomb under the car or if there were more cars waiting just around the corner. This had been a terrible idea.

  “Silas was a good man,” Tallmadge said. “A snob, but they’re all like that. What do you call them? Libertines?” His laugh sounded like a garbage disposal. “Too many bodies, Counselor. Now, everyone is asking questions they shouldn’t. Mostly they’re blaming you.”

  “Not for long,” Cyrus replied.

  Tallmadge shifted his body. The leather seat scrunched. “Wesley—Silas’s bodyguard—he had mental health problems. I’ve got a psychiatric report saying he struggled with dissociative identity disorder. Or that’s what it will say.”

  “What are you offering?”

  “Walk away, and I’ll make sure Silas’s son gets that report. You’ll be off the hook for what happened in Philadelphia. Things will return to normal.”

  Cyrus gestured for Jasper to reply to that one.

  He took a page from Nora’s playbook: “Go to hell.”

  There was that laugh again. Tallmadge definitely should see a doctor. “Did you know the Washingtons have hired their family attorney to argue this case? Gabriel Jay. Two decades of experience, half of it as a trial lawyer. I heard they called him the Shark back in the day. Tore through details like chum.”

  “Are you finished?” Cyrus asked.

  “This evidence. You’ve made copies?”

  “Of course.”

  “And if you lose—which you will—your people will publish the evidence anyway. Slip it to some online journal?”

  “They will.”

  “People deserve to know,” Jasper said.

  “Why? Because it’s true?” Tallmadge adjusted the rearview mirror and stared at Jasper. “Look at these buildings. These monuments. They’re true because they’re here. Magnificent structures built to honor a magnificent past. You want to dig up the side and show off a hairline crack. I’ve got news for you, boy: people don’t want to see the flaws in their own houses, or their pasts. They want them to stay neat and tidy.”

  “I didn’t build it,” Jasper said. “I didn’t even break it. I just found it.”

  “So that’s a hard no.”

  “Yes.”

  Tallmadge sighed, then shrugged his massive shoulders. “You got balls, kid.”

  “I’ve got a list of people who are dead because of you,” Jasper said. “And you can choke on it.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Jasper watched the BMW drive ahead, then stop and let Tallmadge out by the fountain. He wondered if anybody else could hear his heart slamming against his chest.

  “Not the words I would have chosen,” Cyrus said, “but well stated.”

  Jasper took out the small tape recorder and hit STOP. “How did you know he would be here?”

  “People make poor decisions when they’re scared.” Cyrus pocketed the recorder. “Shall we?”

  Jasper guessed there were about fifty people crowded around the fountain. Women in dresses and heels and expensive furs, men in ties and suits and heavy overcoats. Some were stoic, their hands hovering over their coat pockets, glaring at Jasper as he walked to a door under the right side of the expansive staircase. Chief Justice Fletcher waited for them next to a guy that could’ve been Silas’s twin. He had the same large frame and nose, but he was thinner, his hair shorter. As they got closer, Jasper realized he was younger, too. Beside him stood a short, thick man wearing circular frames and holding a briefcase. The Shark.

  “Your Honor,” Cyrus said with a nod.

  “Mr. Barnes.” Fletcher motioned to the Silas look-alike. “Virgil Washington, Silas’s son.”

  “I am deeply sorry for your loss,” Cyrus said.

  Jasper saw the rage and hatred and sorrow flashing across Virgil’s face.


  “Let’s get on with it then,” Fletcher said.

  He led them up three flights of switchback steps and down a long hallway to a set of large, wooden doors. The library—and it deserved that title, the library—was more like a block of wood carved in excruciating detail so somebody could put down carpet and paint the ceiling. A row of chandeliers hung down the center of the reading room and lit up the space like a ballroom. Chairs were arranged in a seating area, with two tables set up to face a third, like a teacher’s desk. It was all so beautiful Jasper almost forgot it might be the scene of his death sentence.

  “Mr. Jay, on the right,” Fletcher said, “Mr. Mansfield, the left.” He walked around his table and put on his black robe. Piled in front of him were stacks of folders. “I’ll give you a few minutes to get organized.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Your Honor,” Jay announced.

  “Kiss-ass,” Nora muttered.

  Jasper set his folder down and took out the brief. The words swam before his eyes. He was breathing harder, but it wasn’t really helping him get more air into his lungs, and then he was leaning against the table and Cyrus was helping him into a chair. Jasper’s fingers buzzed and his face was on fire.

  “Breathe,” Cyrus whispered.

  “It feels like I’m under water and in the middle of a bonfire at the same time.”

  Jasper closed his eyes and focused on each breath. Slowly, like when your arm stops tingling from being asleep, he began to feel normal again.

  What if that happened during his argument?

  “Entrapment,” Sybil whispered behind him. “No third t.”

  “Are we ready, then?” Fletcher asked.

  “Mr. Chief Justice,” Jay said, standing, “may I say what an honor it is to argue in front of you today, in a building filled with such immense history.”

  “Noted,” Fletcher said, putting on his reading glasses. “Each of you will have thirty minutes to present your arguments and answer my questions. I’ll give you each a one-minute warning. This is not a trial; there will be no objections.” He looked over his glasses at each of them. “Any questions?”